Bert and Mary Meyer Foundation and Southern Partners Fund Case Study

Barbara Meyer, founder and president of the Bert and Mary Meyer Foundation, was not always comfortable with the wealth she inherited from her father. Meyer was 24 when her father passed away in 1965, leaving her several thousand dollars in UPS stock. By 1984, with the stock was worth $2M, Meyer started the Bert and Mary Meyer Foundation (BAMM), a family foundation focused on rural grassroots community organizing in 14 southeastern states. Ten years later, as part of the foundation’s tenth anniversary, the board pledged to transfer the foundation’s entire endowment to what was to become Southern Partners Fund (SPF), a public foundation lead by the heads of grassroots community organizations throughout the rural South.